258 THE BIRDS OF ION A AND MULL. 



As their mode of nesting differs from the guillemot's and razorbill's, 

 they are more local in their choice of breeding places. Many of the 

 islands, however, provide suitable spots for them ; some, like Staffa, in 

 holes and crannies of the rock ; others are crowned by banks of soft, 

 unctious soil, grown over with grass and sea-pink, which are honey- 

 combed by burrows of the puffins which have inhabited them for 

 generations, and have reared their young within sound of the ceaseless 

 roaring of the surf which ever rolls under the feet of the frightful over- 

 hanging crags. When intruded upon in these their dangerous haunts, 

 they show little signs of timidity. The old birds remain sitting on 

 their eggs, with their grotesque faces and formidable bills protruding 

 from the doors of their holes, prepared to guard their nest and adminis- 

 ter a most formidable bite to any intrusive fingers. Others continue 

 flying uneasily past the intruders, which they do in a very swift and 

 undeviating line of flight, their wings vibrating with insect-like 

 rapidity, their red legs and paws sticking out behind, wide spread, in 

 a most ungraceful fashion. They sweep past, close along the face of 

 the cliff, within a few feet of the visitors ; then, swooping out seaward, 

 they make a circuit, and so pass and repass again and again. This 

 they all do in the same direction (with or against the sun), and they 

 never cease all the time you remain, giving the appearance of an aerial 

 puffin procession. They never, however, come actually over the land, 

 so that though any amount may be shot, they all go whirling down the 

 abyss into the ocean beneath, where they may be picked up by your 

 comrade in the boat. They are certainly the most eatable of their 

 tribe, and in St Kilda form an important part of the islander's sus- 

 tenance. At Lochgilphead I saw little of the puffin, though they 

 came early in May in thousands, which scattered themselves over Loch 

 Fyne, all disappearing by the end of the month. These were only a 

 division of the grand army progressing north. At this time I often 

 observed them towards evening fly in small flocks right up Loch Gilp ; 

 then, reaching its head, they make a sweep round it, and stand out to 

 sea again. At this point Loch Fyne branches out into two arms like 

 the letter Y. One runs up thirty miles to Inveraray ; the other, a trun- 

 cated one only of three miles, now terminates at Lochgilphead, but 

 before the pre-historic fall of the sea-level ran through Glen Crinan 

 and joined the Western Ocean. Engineering has re-united it by means 

 of the Crinan Canal, but it seems to me that the puffin's instinct for- 



